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FEATURE
Bamboo: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
By Clay Coppedge
Bamboo is not native to Texas but was imported here from Hades.
Actually, that’s not quite true. One species of bamboo, Arundinaria,
is native to part of Texas but is usually called “river cane.” Caney
Creek in Wharton County was originally called Canebrake Creek after the native
river cane that banked its sides.
But for all intents and purposes, most of the bamboo you see growing in Texas,
especially in urban areas, is not native. And that’s where people get
the idea that it originally served as windbreak along the River Styx. Stories
of bamboo infestations and aggressive invasions of the stuff have given it that
reputation in some quarters. It’s called “damn-boo” and “the
plant that ate the neighborhood” by its detractors.
On the other end of the spectrum, on the banks of Little River in Milam County,
Kinder and Mary Len Chambers willingly and happily grow about 60 different kinds
of bamboo on their property. They are members of both the Texas and American
bamboo societies, and they are bamboo boosters of the first order. But they
have heard the horror stories and affirm that some people have had horrendous
experiences with bamboo. “There’s no doubt that it’s a problem
in some areas,” Kinder readily admits.
The couple won’t defend bamboo to people who are overrun with it, but
they want people to know that there are hundreds of varieties of bamboo, and
not all of them grow up to act like something from “Little Shop of Horrors.”
They believe that golden bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea) has sullied the reputation
of other, more benign varieties. This is the plant that people generally talk
about when they talk about the plant that ate their neighbor’s yard.
It’s important to know that there are basically two types of bamboo—running
and clumping. The runners are the ones that can take over a landscape if given
half a chance. The clumpers grow much more slowly. The bulb-shaped rhizomes
(underground stems) on clumping varieties are short, and new shoots, called
culms, come up closer to the parent. The long, far-ranging rhizomes on running
bamboo can extend for some distance and are jointed with nodes at which a culm
or another rhizome can grow. Leave running bamboo alone and it will lift sidewalks
and driveways and even come up through the floorboards inside houses in its
insatiable desire to become Lord of the Flora. If someone is talking to you
about “damn-boo,” they are likely talking about a variety of running
bamboo.
Kinder and Mary Len don’t suggest trying to dig the roots out of already
established problem bamboo. Because the roots must have leaves to draw energy
from the sun, he suggests divorcing the roots from the sun by killing every
shoot that comes up. The shoots will come back, but each time they will be smaller
until they don’t bother coming back at all.
If the bamboo grove is not already too well established, if it hasn’t
already devoured the neighborhood or countryside, he suggests pruning the roots.
But, he admits, “That’s a pretty big chore for an already existing
grove.”
In urban settings, he suggests using a sharp, narrow shovel and digging in
about 6 to 8 inches. Don’t expect to find a taproot, because you won’t.
Farmers, or people with a considerable amount of acreage, can use a tractor
and subsoiler to do the job.
The pair first got interested in bamboo as a means of erosion control along
the portion of Little River that runs through their land. They were losing about
2 feet a year to erosion.
Their place is a demonstration farm for growers and prospective growers of
bamboo. They have a bamboo treehouse, bamboo furniture and a bamboo stair railing.
Members of the Texas Bamboo Society can get cuttings from the Chambers’
farm for free. First-timers pay $40 for their cutting, which is used to make
them official members of the society.
“We’re available for any kind of information about bamboo that
you might want,” Kinder says. “If you want to know how to grow it,
we’ll show you how to grow it. If you want to get rid of it, we’ll
show you how to do that too.”
Bamboo enthusiasts suggest that anybody worried about controlling running bamboo
should get a clumping variety. “Some of the clumping types are beautiful,”
said Danielle Kaplan, office manager for Utility Research Garden in Austin.
“The look is different. It grows a little each year and is easier to control.
The fear that most people have when they plant bamboo is that it will run and
take over the neighbor’s yard.”
To make sure that doesn’t happen she suggests using in-ground root barriers
to not only control the spread of the plant but to shape the bamboo stand that
you want to grow. The barriers are plastic and flexible, allowing you to grow
the bamboo stand in whatever shape you desire. She concedes that sometimes it
will jump the barrier.
“When that happens, just hack it off,” she suggests.
Container bamboo can be placed outdoors or even indoors by a sunny window.
“We’re trying to get the word out that bamboo can make really nice
indoor or container plants,” Kaplan says.
Others are trying to get the word out that bamboo should be avoided as a dangerous
invasive. Bamboo showed up on the “Texas’ Least Wanted List”
at a conference on invasive species at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
in Austin last year. Andrea DeLong-Amaya, director of gardens and growing, believes
that a little bit of knowledge can go a long way in deciding whether or not
bamboo is right for you or your landscape.
“The main thing is to find a species that won’t be invasive,”
she says. “People considering bamboo should ask themselves why they want
it and then determine if there is a native species that will suit their purposes
just as well.
“For example, if you like a lush look, horsetail might do just as well.”
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SIDEBAR
This photo, circa 1880s, of clumping bamboo was taken in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).
For scale, note the man circled.
Bamboo is primarily an import to the United States, and it doesn’t grow
as tall here as the clumping variety shown above. But if you are going for size,
some classic giant bamboo varieties can grow 100 feet tall and 10 inches in
diameter in South and even Central Texas.
The smallest bamboo varieties such as Pleioblastus distichus grow less than
a foot tall. But even they need controlling. An Alabama distributor warns that
mowing around his patch didn’t stop its advancement. The runners simply
grew 3-inch-tall culms (shoots).
Bamboos are either clumping or running grasses. They produce new shoots each
growing season—that’s usually the spring for running bamboo. A shoot
reaches its full height in one growing season, growing a foot or more a day.
With ample rain, the next year’s shoots will be taller and thicker.
Bamboo is a popular renewable construction material. It’s used for flooring,
furniture and kitchen utensils. The shoots take three to six years to mature
and harden, but they grow much faster than trees and can be harvested without
doing damage to the underground root system for the next crop.
For more information on bamboo in Texas, go to www.texasbamboosociety.net.
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The Texas Bamboo Society meets on the third Saturday of the month at Taniguchi
Japanese Garden in the Zilker Botanical Gardens in Austin. You can contact Kinder
Chambers via e-mail at txbooguru@aol.com.
Clay Coppedge is the state writer for Country World newspaper. He lives
and works near Walburg.
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